


Surprises and Scotches

by Anonymississippi



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Secret Santa Prompt!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8924401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi
Summary: Cat doesn't plan on staying very long in National City, but holidays force her home for the season. It's been almost four months since she's been seen on the west coast, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that a few things have changed.
Kara finds Cat months after their one-night stand, and has some big news to share.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rtarara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rtarara/gifts).



> Secret Santa Prompt: It turns out that having a one-night stand with a Kryptonian can result in them showing up months later at your door pregnant. This was something neither partner could have anticipated (I don't care if you flip it the other way with Kryptonians DOING the impregnating - either works :D )
> 
> So I might have gotten a little carried away with these prompts, @rtarara. Hope they at least partially live up to expectations! And, on a personal note, I'd just like to thank you for being such an amazing member of this fandom. You write, you read, you create, and you are generous with your praise. If half of the people in the Supergirl fandom were as cool as you, we'd shut AO3 down!!!
> 
> Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours,
> 
> -Missy

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When the doorbell rings, Cat doesn’t have the heart to tell Carter not to answer. She’s not in much mood to play hostess, even if Scott Dausman, Jr. is coming by for the first time in months just to see Carter on the one day their holiday breaks overlap back in National City.

It’s a Monday, the Monday before Thanksgiving, and the California air feels milder than it has in past seasons, far more moderate than the biting temperatures Cat’s withstood since her relocation to Metropolis. There is not much autumn in coastal California, nothing like the foliage upstate on the east coast where Cat’s moved her homebase since her decision to take her leave of absence. But time passes, _it always passes_ , and there’s never enough minutes in the day, in the week, month, year…

It will be Christmas soon. Fourth quarter financial reports due for review. The only holiday party Cat allows at the office will take place: a drunken, raucous hoopla of underlings that she usually attends by way of obligation more than interest, one where she quietly slips out in favor of a fifteen-year old scotch, _It’s a Wonderful Life_ with Carter, and, if she’s really feeling festive, a thick slice of Marta’s homemade pumpkin bread slathered in full-fat, full dairy, slow-churned butter from that little market on Monroe Boulevard.

But Thanksgiving first, and with Thanksgiving comes Katherine, comes Carter’s father, comes the stilted cheek kisses with Foundation donors and the uncertain flourish of a felt-tip pen when she signs the holiday cards for two estranged cousins on her father’s side, hunkered down somewhere in their refurbished colonial mansion in the Arlington suburbs. Thanksgiving is a notably less formal affair without Carter around; she’s only back in National City this early to allow the exchange, to oversee his father’s pick up and then to hit the home office, coordinating final directives before the east coast cubicles clock out at six Wednesday evening.

“Got it, mom!” Carter hollers, sliding on the tile with his clumsy, sock-footed feet.

He loves his new school in Metropolis, loves the heights of the city, the teeming concentration of bodies, the cracked sidewalks, the varied theaters, the bacteria-covered subway—Cat swears she had her first minor cardiac episode when Carter returned to their semi-detached Lexington rental during his second week at the new gifted school, having taken the Red line all the way down with two other classmates who lived in the same neighborhood. One of his fellow subway travelers was named Marianna.

Carter wouldn’t shut up about her.

“Mom?” Carter calls from the hallway, prompting Cat’s abandonment of the budget projections and Foundation files spread helter-skelter across the coffee table. “Mom! Someone’s here—!”

“Yes?” she stands, wipes quickly at the tops of her denim-covered thighs, flicks a hand beneath the hair tucked into her collar. No curl today, not on a morning in, not when her only potential guest might be little Scotty Dausman, come to pick up Carter before they hit the beach. It’s the one thing Carter really misses about California, and the Dausman’s have oceanfront property thirty minutes south of the city. She hears two sets of feet shuffling down the entryway toward the living area. “Carter, are you and Scotty—”

“Good morning, Ms. Grant.”

Cat stops in her tracks and suppresses her gasp, placing a hand against the refrigerator door to keep herself upright.

Kara is, of course, beautiful as ever, and still possesses an impeccable sense of timing. She catches her off-guard; has always possessed the uncanny knack of surprising the unphasable Cat Grant. It seems Kara has not lost her talent, for she keeps doing so nearly four months since their long, lovely departing.

Cat is not prepared for an early meeting with those shining, kind eyes and the thousand-watt smile. She is even less prepared for having not seen the girl since that unforgettable night, no time to Skype or call between CEOs and junior reporters who keep odd hours and crazy schedules on opposite coasts. No time to talk, but they write, text, and email intimate confessions with sporadic frequency. Cat had torn Kara’s last article to pieces in their shared Google docs folder, and Kara had texted her the following morning with that damned crying cat-face emoji.

Cat had smiled, yelled at an intern, and then secured $500,000 for the Foundation.

“Kara,” Cat manages, but the name is like a stone in her throat. It nearly lodges there, almost chokes her, because the last time she saw Kara face-to-face had been in this very apartment, in the back bedroom, with low lamp-light and the insistence that they wouldn’t do it again, that it was only one night, that she was _leaving_ , and that this, _oh_ , even this, couldn’t make her stay. Cat would never want Kara to read into it as more than it was; she didn’t want Kara to think about what it could be. At the time, four months ago, after teary-eyed farewells and one bold, desperate, melancholy kiss, two women came together to bid each other goodbye.

But when Cat had rolled over at six a.m. to kick Kara out (because the CatCo jet had a take-off scheduled for her at seven, and the east coast Foundation branch a luncheon at noon), Kara was already gone.

_Best of luck with the Foundation_ , Kara had scribbled on a notepad that morning. _Thank you, Cat, for everything you’ve done for me. Ever yours, Kara._

That note lived in Cat’s bedside drawer, tucked away under a glasses-repair kit, an extra charger, paper scraps and lotion and pens running on their last inky ounces. Right over the upper-case _T_ in ‘thank you’ was a smear, a splatter, from the single tear Cat let herself cry. That morning she was late to the Tarmac, late on the takeoff, and, as a result, late for the east coast luncheon. The memories of Kara’s sighs in her ear would never leave her. Fingers curled between her legs, lips sliding and pressing against her own, strong, suspect hands and muscles that held her just a touch too securely, too carefully, as if one wrong move between them might break her.

She’d allowed herself to replay the memories in her head for the duration of that continental cross and no longer. Cat was a go-getter, she had work to do, and she wouldn’t allow Kara to lose sight of her own dreams, of her own potential; she would not allow Kara the false hope of believing they could make something impossible work through sheer determination and positivity. Even if that’s always been Kara’s MO (stubborn determination and unfettered positivity). Two qualities Kara had radiated from the beginning, had always known how to wield like Cat wielded authority and decisiveness. Maybe those qualities (those, and many others) were why Cat allowed that one slip in the first place.

_Please_ , Kara had asked her, after Cat had pressed against her chest and scooted back, broken their kiss in the back of the car, reiterated with exact syllables why they couldn’t do this. Shouldn’t.

What they did anyway.

_I’m going to miss you so much._

“Who told you we were back?” Cat begins, ever the inquirer.

Kara stands in her kitchen, hands filled with two packages wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied up in fanned raffia ribbon. She places the items atop the counter and grins, settles her hands on her hips, and Cat almost wonders if she’s _trying_ to look obvious at this point.

“Little bird,” Kara answers, with a cocky tilt of her head.

Cat narrows her brows as she turns toward her refrigerator, pulling out the filtered water pitcher.

“Little plane?”

It’s the automatic response. Cat nods at the pitcher and Kara declines with a headshake, one small curl of gold escaping from her braided up-do. Cat remembers running her fingers through soft blonde hair and not speaking up, not telling Kara how nice it felt. She’d have to take back her comment about the conditioner, then, and file away her suspicions about alien hair care.

“You look… different,” Carter tells Kara, drumming his fingers on the edge of the kitchen countertop.

“You’re nearly as tall as I am, now,” Kara tells him, handing Carter the first package. “A lot can happen in four months.” Kara’s mouth twitches at the comment, as if there’s underlying embarrassment in her observation.

“Thanks!” Carter says, ripping into the packaging, pausing, glancing up at Kara again. “Or, no, not like that… your face is like, rounder,” Carter tells Kara, and Cat can see where this is going before Carter even makes the connections in his rapidly expanding and hormonally overloaded brain. “Did you gain—”

“Carter,” Cat cuts him off, trying to ignore that Kara’s face _does_ look rounder, that her assistant with the metabolism of an Olympic swimmer _has_ gained some weight. Sunny Danvers was always bright, was always cheerful, but now, Kara upholds the glowing cliché, flushed and bronze and sparkling with rounded edges. Kara personifies radiance, and Cat—well, Cat’s not blind, not oblivious, not ignorant to the barely concealed twinkle in Kara’s eye that’s more telling than the forced smile. The surprise, unannounced drive-by. The presents.

Like Kara’s feeling more than guilty, more than nervous… she’s one of the few who knows Cat’s story about Adam, knows of Cat’s personal sacrifices to get to the top and now—now maybe Kara’s gone and made the same mistake?

Is that where the guilt comes from? After every leg up, after all the help Cat’s offered…

Does she feel like she let Cat down?

Cat puts it all together in milliseconds, a narrative so familiar because it is autobiographical.

Kara looks to her and all Cat wants is to sit the girl down and talk her through it, tell her it’s doable, it’s hard as hell, it’s a decision that’s going to influence every action she takes from now until she dies.

A decision that will be doubly hard, because Cat didn’t have an alter-ego to maintain while weighing her options with Adam. Still a world to save, in her own small way, and the weight of that burden meant she had to give Adam up. If Kara really is Supergirl, Cat sure as hell hopes she’s got a wildcard and a binkie in her pocket.

“Open your present, Carter,” Cat redirects, keeping her eyes trained on Kara’s nose and not her slightly rounded stomach. “Apparently five printed articles in a barely-functioning daily leaves extra time to make special house calls.”

“I took a personal day,” Kara answers, turning shyly back to the counter. “When I knew you were back, I needed to see you first thing,” she trails off, focus shifting back to Carter and his metallic instrument, something long and beepy and sciencey that has Cat cocking her brow toward the ceiling.

“It’s a Geiger Counter,” Kara says.

“ _What?!”_

“What? Cool!” Carter exclaims, twisting knobs and mashing buttons until the digitized blue numbers flicker to life on the screen.

“It’s not for actual radioactive materials,” Kara tells him. “Well, not radioactive to humans, anyway.”

“How does it work?” Carter inquires.

“You remember my sister? Did you ever meet her while you were here?” Kara asks Carter, the pair of them trapped in their own little world.

Cat feels superfluous. Feels unanchored. Like Kara can barge into her apartment with all the blinding intensity of a solar storm after weeks and weeks of absence and she’ll still make allowances where she’s never made them before for anyone else.

Allowances of all kinds—like letting her son play with a _Geiger counter_.

“She’s with the science division in the FBI,” Kara continues, pressing one of the mechanisms to the side of the slim metal instrument. One leg swings out and a whirly disk begins rotating, the thrum of mechanized progress held reverently in her son’s hand. “Press right here, then check the display. See, ever since they found out about Kryptonite, there’s been this theory that other radioactive substances are out there, all around. Maybe they’re not poisonous for humans, but they’re not from this planet. This is just a prototype from the lab, but I thought you’d like it.”

“No kidding!” Carter beams, Kara smiles, and Cat’s heart melts a little. “Thank you, Kara.”

“Of course.”

Carter whips his phone out and taps away, looking up with those pinched eyebrows Cat’s seen on her own face more times than she can count.

“Scott’s downstairs,” he says. “But I didn’t know Kara was coming or—”

“You go,” Kara tells him. “I dropped in unannounced, you shouldn’t suspend your schedule on my account.”

“Back by four,” Cat tells him, as he tucks his phone in his back pocket and presses the leg of the instrument back into its metallic trunk. “Your father will be here at six to pick you up.”

“Okay,” Carter responds, shoving his overlarge adolescent feet into the sneakers resting by the door. “Thanks again, Kara. I’ll… well, I hope I see you around!”

“I’d like that, Carter,” Kara agrees.

“Bye, Mom!”

All at once, they’re alone in Cat’s kitchen just like that night four months ago. This time, Kara stands on the other side of the counter; she’s not pressed up against Cat, one hand carefully cupping her jaw and the other curled over the knobby protrusion at Cat’s hip bone. Kara is jittery, but not in her excited way, not in her eager way. Jittery as in anxious. And nervous, and scared.

In all her tenure as assistant, Cat’s seen Kara frustrated, unsure, angry, and disappointed, but never _scared._ Never _frightened_. It’s not a look Cat likes on Sunny Danvers and Cat resolves in an instant, three time zones and one phone call away, that she’s going to make Kara brave again.

“My turn?” Cat asks, reaching for the other package. Her fingers take hold of the heavy object and Cat thinks she knows what it is, or something close to it.

“Sure.”

Cat uses a kitchen knife to cut the ribbon from the neck of the—yes—Macallan scotch, twelve years old, a new brand, one she’s been dying to try.

“Unless _The Tribune_ ’s made some financial adjustments I haven’t approved, I know you can’t afford this,” Cat pronounces, wadding up the packaging paper and placing it in the recycling.

“I didn’t know if you’d be back for Christmas,” Kara confesses, fiddling with the cuff of her shirt.

Her wardrobe hasn’t changed much since August. It’s still bland, department brands, but Cat hasn’t seen that tired blouse before. There’s more material to it, but even so, Kara’s chest strains against the two flimsy plastic buttons holding the garment in place over her chest.

“I wanted to get you something you’d like. That you’ll—heh—” Kara shrugs nervously, “probably need.”

“I’m not alone in needing strong liquor during the holidays,” Cat scrutinizes the label, wondering what ulterior motive Kara might have. “Don’t make me out to be some exception to the rule.”

“Of course not, Ms. Grant.”

“Kara,” Cat chides her, fixing her former assistant, former lover, probable super hero, with the deepest, most withering Cat-Grant-stare she can muster at 8:30 on a Monday morning.

“Cat,” Kara croaks, her expression falling, the twinkle finally manifesting as pooling tears.

“So,” Cat beings, threading her fingers together, resting them atop the countertop. “How far along are you?”

“No, it’s… I needed… oh, Rao,” Kara grimaces, shoving her knuckle under the frame of her glasses, wiping quickly before it gets embarrassing. “I _practiced_ this.”

“You know I’m here to help. And I can’t still be intimidating to you,” Cat chides, moving closer to Kara, laying a hand atop her still-chiseled bicep. Not all of her has softened with the onset of pregnancy. “Not after such a spectacular send-off,” she murmurs, forcing eye contact, trying to express gentleness and acceptance with her tone. “You could have called about this, Kara. You don’t have to limit yourself to work conversations when you text me.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Kara squeaks. “I didn’t think—there had to be some _mistake_ —it wasn’t like I wanted this to happen. I just got a new job, Alex is going through… stuff… then there’s—” Kara makes a wave-like gesture out the window over Cat’s sink, looking off into the sky.

“Of course,” Cat answers in the abstract. “Really, Kara, this will be easier if you plan ahead. You’re brilliant at that, right? You’ve kept me in line, your articles are improving, let Snapper know as soon as you can if you haven’t already. CatCo has an impressive maternity leave plan courtesy of my strong-arming HR. It’s set up so—”

“No, no,” Kara turns too quickly for a human and places her hands on Cat’s arms, holds her there, takes a deep breath through her nose: “This isn’t how this was supposed to happen.”

“That’s what I said with Adam,” Cat responds, raising a hand and tucking that damnable super curl behind Kara’s ear. “There are options if you… agencies, Kara. Great places I can recommend, if the father—”

“I’m keeping her,” Kara mumbles, gnawing on her lower lip. She releases Cat and places a hand over her abdomen. “Cat, this is so hard.”

“It’s a girl?”

Kara nods, grabbing Cat’s hand and moving it toward her stomach.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to feel her move until—” There’s a sharp jab against her palm, syncopated pressures, like the baseline in a pop song. “Oh, Kara.”

“She doesn’t stop moving,” Kara says, releasing Cat’s wrist. Cat keeps her hand there, can’t pull it away, marveling at the intensity with which the baby kicks so early in development. Kara’s stomach slopes gently beneath her fingers. The growth is gradual but inevitable, an expansion of Kara’s light that might just outshine all Kara’s done before, if she loves her with the depth of feeling Cat knows Kara harbors.

A daughter. Kara’s _daughter._

“You can’t be… no, really, how far along are you?” Cat begins, the gears rotating, chapters upon articles upon books returning in a haze of prenatal study. Cat thinks about trimesters and the romanticism dies. From what she can recall about development and growth, it’s too early. This type of activity doesn’t come until month five, six—and Kara’s barely begun to show. Every pregnancy is different, but Kara had recently ended her flirtation with Olsen last Cat inquired to her personal life. To Cat’s knowledge, there were no other prospects, so the timeline doesn’t match up. “Have you been to the doctor? What do they say about this?”

Kara steps away from Cat and her hand falls, her ex-assistant’s expression clearly stricken.

“This is the part where you sit down,” Kara tells her, gesturing toward the barstool.

Cat takes a wary step back, placing impatient hands on her hips. “Don’t make me snap and call you _Kiera_ again. Out with it.”

Kara turns on her heel and retreats to the cabinets, pulling her hair down and her glasses off in the process. “So it should come as little surprise to you that I’m… Supergirl.”

If Cat had been prone to physical manifestations of violence, she would’ve punched a wall. Instead it’s usually verbal snips, wounding barbs thrown with the accuracy of ninja stars. But right now, like this, so early and months away from a one-night stand with a girl—alien—half her age, she can’t formulate the words that will strike the hardest.

Instead she asks, “Really, we’re doing it like this?”, because of all the confession scenarios Cat’s played out in her mind, it didn’t involve $200 Scotch and Thanksgiving and an unborn Danvers offspring.

Cat watches Kara work at the buttons of her top as she turns, glass in hand, the sliver of blue and red peeking out from under her half-buttoned blouse.

“This is hardly the shocker of the morning,” Kara says, pressing the glass against the ice dispenser so that a few cubes clatter into it.

“That would be your indulging my drinking before nine a.m.,” Cat returns, watching Kara yank the stopper from the top of the scotch with ease. She pours Cat one, two, three generous fingers of alcohol, then slides the glass across the countertop. Cat takes a seat and props her elbow on the counter, waiting for Kara to continue.

“There’s a couple of bombshells here,” Kara mutters. “The first of which is no surprise. I’m Supergirl. You’ve known it for a long time.”

“Got it,” Cat snaps at her, hand darting out to grab the drink, contents sloshing with her violent handling. She takes a gulp out of anger, anger because it took a pregnancy for Kara to trust her with this, after they’d been through so much together.

It’s anger that’s justifiable and Kara knows it, or else she wouldn’t have brought the alcohol in the first place, fallen back into an older, more submissive role, preparing the drink, waiting for Cat’s signal to continue. Cat is beginning to understand some of the guilty looks Kara’s been tossing her over the course of this morning’s bizarre exchange, and for once she almost prefers the state of blissful ignorance.

“And… Supergirl will be taking a leave of absence for four months.”

“Only four?” Cat checks her, looking Kara’s glowing figure up and down once more. “There’s no way you’re at twenty weeks.”

“No it’s… a shorter g-gestation period,” Kara swallows uncertainly over the word _gestation_ , as if the science of pregnancy makes her squeamish. “That’s why she kicks like she does and I—it’s—they’re operating on a lot of theory.”

“I assume ‘they’ is your not-so-FBI-affiliated-sister?” Cat scoffs. “Does Agent Scully even have a medical degree? I hope to God they’ve still got you seeing an OB.”

Kara’s features grow gloomier as she sucks on the inside of one cheek. “She’s the best there is for Kryptonians, which, uhm, right…” Kara ambles over toward the second barstool, takes a seat, swivels uncertainly to face Cat’s accusing stare. “Supergirl’s going to take a leave of absence. We’ve got something staged for Wednesday to get Supergirl out of the public eye. We’re working with, well—there’s this guy—”

“Obviously.”

“Please, let me get this out,” Kara says, swiping one hand over her face. “He’s not the father. He’s a Daxamite. Another alien. He’s really strong, but… not as strong as me. Guardian, uh… the vigilante? He’s going to train him, and the Daxamite will fill in where he can. They’re calling him Power Boy.”

“That might be the worst superhero name I’ve ever heard,” Cat grunts, taking another swig of the scotch. It’s tingly and early, and Cat’s really questioning if she can still do this at fifty. Day drunk no longer holds its appeal when typos and decimals need her strict attention. When she might have to up the time line on the Foundation establishment to come and run interference in Supergirl’s absence, in _Powerboy’s_ wake.

“I agree,” Kara smiles again, finally, and Cat’s spirits lift infinitesimally. “I’m four months along. Alex projects another four months, but we don’t know what to expect with a half-Kryptonian child.”

“So the Daxamite isn’t the father?”

“Rao no, it’s…ha, see, that’s the funny part,” Kara says, taking the bottle, refilling Cat’s glass. The way Kara says it, the uneasy grin, the warble at the edge of her words, leads Cat to believe that Kara doesn’t think this is funny at all. “I wanted to name her Kate,” Kara murmurs, staring pointedly at the countertop. “After her mother.”

“Your name is Kara,” Cat says, scrunching her brows together. “Is that… was Kara pronounced differently on Krypton?”

“No,” Kara laments, shaking her head. “But Kate is short for Katherine. With a K, this time, not a C.”

“Catherine?”

“Yes.” Kara nods nervously, moving to adjust her glasses, pausing, running her hand over one side of her head when she realizes they’re no longer perched on her nose. It’s strange, seeing Kara’s mannerisms on Supergirl’s face. What’s even stranger is what Kara’s implying: “With your permission, of course.”

“Wait, I…” Cat’s stomach drops. Her hand tightens on her glass. Half of her life flashes before her eyes. “You’re her mother.”

“…so are you,” Kara says, wiping again at an escaping tear. “It’s okay if you don’t want to…” Kara tilts her head toward the ceiling, gripping the countertop with such power Cat wonders if it will crumble beneath her fingertips. “…be a part of this,” she finally chokes out the rest of her thought, but Cat’s still stuck on the _so are you_ portion of the previous sentence. “Kryptonian females are so advanced on this planet we don’t even need sperm to conceive,” Kara blubbers. “Just an orgasm or two and a—” Kara gulps, gasps, and Cat’s head spins, “—willing partner. Male, female, apparently it doesn’t matter. Alex said my eggs weren’t picky and then I kicked a tank in the ocean.”

Cat slowly raises the glass to her lips. Takes a sip.

_Kate._

_Katherine._

_After her_ mother.

She thumbs at the moisture on her lips and tries to absorb what Kara’s saying, tries to think what motivation Kara might have for lying, tries to rationalize why Kara would do this to her if it wasn’t the illogical, reality-defying truth. Kara is not cruel. Not petty. Even after leaving things so terribly unresolved, Kara would never punish her in this way. Cat takes another sip, which turns into a gulp, which turns into her downing an entire glass of scotch in her kitchen on November 21 at 8:43 a.m., the date and time Cat Grant found out she was the father— _mother_ —of a partial super-human.

“…you’re serious?”

Kara nods, pushing the bottle of scotch within Cat’s reach. “Hence the present I can’t afford. Less ‘congratulations’ and more ‘I’m sorry’.”

“And you’re sure it’s mine?”

The comment is every slut-shaming accusation Cat has worked her lifetime to discredit, but it’s reflexive. She shakes her head, pours more scotch, and immediately wants to take it back.

“Sorry, that wasn’t fair, I just…”

Kara rubs at her temple when she confesses: “I haven’t slept with anyone in the past year except for you, so, yes, Ms. Grant, it’s yours.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Cat says, because she does get to be shocked, she gets to be flustered, she gets to pour another drink as big as the first if she damn well wants to. Impregnating another woman never quite made it onto her bucket list. “I know I’m good, but I never believed myself to be science-defying good.”

Kara shoots her the iciest stare imaginable and Cat’s thankful she’s got a handle on those laser eyes.

“I told you that you don’t have to be a part of our lives,” Kara bites back, some of her Supergirl power emerging at Cat’s jibe. Cat smirks, picturing a teddy bear turned mama grizzly prepping for a takedown. “I just thought you should know. We can do a DNA test if you—”

“My life will not be turned into _Maury_ ’s latest episode, thank you very much,” Cat quips. “And of course I should know. She’s my daughter. And we are not naming her Kate.” Cat picks up her drink and rises, turns on the ball of her feet, and retreats to the living area.

“Wait,” Kara says, tromping along behind her. “What are you—”

“You’ve been taking vitamins?” Cat asks, crossing to the built-ins on either side of the fireplace and scanning the shelves, selecting two titles on health and the classic _What to Expect When You’re Expecting_. “And you never drank before, so that’s good. But no more of that pumpkin caffeine sugar poison you slurp like a heathen. You can have tea in moderation. Now, there’s no outstanding genetic abnormalities on my side. I had an uncle with colon cancer, but I imagine that won’t matter much if she’s part Kryptonian.”

“Cat, wait, what are you—?”

“I’ll call St. Benedick’s Academy,” Cat says. “Sharon Parsons is finally off the board so there’s no road blocks there, but the wait-list is near insurmountable for Pre-K. If you’d have called me right when you found out, I might have secured a spot for fall of 2020. Now, we’ll have to take our chances and see what I can offer William—he’s the Headmaster of the magnet program—and we might be able to squeeze her in. If not we can look into Milton’s or the S.T.E.A.M. school down on Jefferson—Kara, Kara what’s wrong?”

Kara isn’t just crying. She’s not putting on Supergirl’s brave face or adhering to Cat’s number one rule at work. Then again, they aren’t _at_ work, but there’s no mistaking that Supergirl is full-on sobbing, her shirt flapped open and that _S_ of hope and empowerment doing little good for the shaking woman in Cat Grant’s living room.

“Kara, Kara, it’s okay,” Cat soothes her, setting the books aside and moving to urge Kara back on the couch.

“I—I—I—” Kara hiccups and a puff of icy breath materializes before her. She slaps her hand over her mouth and sobs harder.

“Please breathe,” Cat says, patting her back uncertainly, wondering if Kara can even feel it. “I’ve no knowledge of how to deal with a hyperventilating alien.” Cat makes plenty of comments come out as both calming and critical, a paradox Cat loves to inhabit. Mother. Father? Some strange combination of the two.

“I—I can’t believe you want her,” Kara gasps around her tears, hugs her arms over her stomach and dips her head uncertainly. “Of all the ways I thought this might go—Cat, what about the Foundation? You’ve been working so hard—”

“Having Carter did not stop me from working hard,” Cat says. “And will not stop you from doing the same. It’s hard as hell, Kara, but you have saved this Earth a hundred times over. I have every confidence in the pair of us.”

“What about diving and… and-and-and-aliens!” Kara blusters, her carefree features marred by the weight of unpredictable future events. “What about aliens and—there are so many people who want to kill me.”

“People want to kill me, too. But then you turn around and save me.”

“What if they come for both of us? At the same time?!”

“The probability of that happening—”

“Is the same as me going to another universe!” Kara wails. “Which I’ve done!”

“Now you’re just being dramatic,” Cat chastises her, running her fingers along the locks of blonde that have fallen to curtain off Kara’s face. Kara’s flopped back on her couch as if she’s always belonged there, as if Cat’s proximity has given her some stark relief. Cat settles beside her and it’s as if they’re back in the office on one of Kara’s bad days, on the days she needs guidance most of all. “And you know I’m the dramatic one. Our daughter needs some of your cheerful pragmatism to balance out whatever polarizing personality traits she inherits from me.”

“You’re sure?” Kara asks. “You really want to do this?”

“This is my burden—no, that’s the wrong word,” Cat smoothes Kara’s collar down and grins, remembering how this whole thing started.

The goodbye in her office, an innocent touch to the collar, to the neck, and then a hug that lasted perhaps a second too long. A farewell dinner, Kara had called it. Well, drinks at Noonan’s; Kara couldn’t afford the kind of dinner Cat preferred. There were laughs shared and advice given concerning Snapper, concerning soft and straight leads, power verbs, unnecessary adjectives and a list of abbreviations needed for AP style. But there was also that tantalizing closeness, the brush of fingers against knee-caps covered in navy pantyhose and maybe one or two whispers that forced them nearer each other, forced Cat to reach up and pull Kara down by her shirt collar so that she could properly mumble the joke about the waiter in Kara’s ear. She’d only had two drinks— _two_ —but Cat felt high on the possibility of diving. Kara had been brazen, had grabbed Cat’s fingers when they clutched her collar and walked them down under the table to her thigh— _please_ —had pressed against the inside of her dress slacks and murmured _You want me to dive? Like this, Ms. Grant?_ and Cat had called the car for the two of them mere seconds later.

The night comes back and a wave of want hits Cat again (it might be the drink), but the heated desire is quelled by Kara’s distress. She shouldn’t feel so much for this girl, this superhuman, crying and puffy-eyed on her couch, apparently carrying her _child_.

“Kara, listen to me,” Cat instructs. “She’s my responsibility as much as yours. Obviously it was unplanned, but that doesn’t mean you should be saddled with all of it. I won’t call this a mistake, just a—”

“Curveball?”

“We will not be teaching her generic sports metaphors,” Cat proclaims, continuing to stroke Kara’s hair. Kara turns into the touch, hums under her hand, and Cat wonders at how long Kara’s been dealing with the stress of this revelation, how many hours she’s spent turning over the possibility of Cat’s rejection in her mind. It is impossible and outlandish and utterly unconventional, though Cat has never put much stock in convention. Still, she feels partially responsible for Kara’s torment, her imperious nature (as well as the distance, her status, her celebrity, etc.) making it plenty difficult for her former assistant to pluck up the courage and come to her with not one, but two major revelations in a single morning.

“I made a mobile,” Kara sniffles, her eyes darting down to Cat’s lips and then back up, guilty, _caught_ , but Cat keeps stroking her hair, takes one of Kara’s hands in her free one.

“Oh? Arts and crafts day?”

“Right,” Kara responds, definitely trying _not_ to look at her. “I had the paints and went down to the craft store, got a few dowels, some of those Styrofoam spheres wrapped in the plastic, so nothing flakes off and gets in the crib… I’m saving for a crib, too!” Kara sits straighter, leans closer, worry replaced by exuberance, by enthusiasm, by joy so genuine it sucked Cat into her orbit and never let her go. “I’ve got a list and I’m halfway through it: bottles, some onesies I’ve made, and blankets. Alex threatened with ‘baby’s first Glock’ after the shock of it all, and I wouldn’t let her out of a headlock for a whole five minutes until she apologized. But Alex is on board for sitting, and Winn too, though I’m a little more hesitant there…but he’s had tons of foster siblings, so he might be okay with babies. I know you’ll be busy in Metropolis, so we’ll have that covered—”

“Wait, Metropolis? Kara, I’m moving back as of ten minutes ago.”

“No,” Kara shakes her head adamantly. “This doesn’t get to derail you—”

“This is not derailment. I can run a Foundation from any coast I choose. It’ll be easier with me here, and I have more than enough room for a nursery.”

Kara crinkles her forehead, the upward turn of her lips reversing direction. “But I’ve baby-proofed the apartment—”

“You’re coming, too,” Cat says, as if it were obvious, as if it were the logical conclusion. Then again, an hour ago Kara believed Cat was ready to boot her out. “I’m sorry, I just assumed where I shouldn’t have… I have more room. I think it’s the most logical option for the both of us.”

“Move in with you?” Kara asks, her jaw gaping, cheeks hollowed in amazement. “Don’t you think that’s a little—I mean, my flat’s fine, it’s not ideal, but—oh! Oh Cat, you know this isn’t about money or anything. I can make it work. Private kindergarten might be a little much, but I can take care of her. I know I can.”

Kara radiates conviction as she makes promise after promise for her child, knowing she’ll never hit Cat’s standard of living (but she’ll outstrip Cat’s standards for kindness, for care giving, for teaching-moments and bed-time snuggles Cat did miss on the first go-round because of her job). Kara will be an excellent mother, will come at the job with a different focus because of her personal history. Cat knows so very little about Kara’s parents, about her relationship with a long-lost mother on Krypton, her friends, her culture, an entire family, a world obliterated on the other side of the cosmos.

“I have no doubt,” Cat says. “But I think, with your _other_ job, and my job, it would only benefit her to have a two-parent household. You are more than welcome to take the spare bedroom. There’s only three, so we’ll have to do some reconfiguring for a nursery.”

Three bedrooms. Carter. That will be an issue.

_Why is your pregnant assistant moving in with us again?_

The doorman might talk.

Neighbors.

Shit, _the tabloids_.

Perhaps ‘reconfiguring’ is not the best word.

“Actually…” Cat pauses, her brain working as fast as Kara flies, the endless implications of a pregnant former employee _moving in with her_ leading to a minor panic attack.

Lexapro. No, maybe not with the scotch.

“…actually, this might be trickier than I originally thought,” Cat confesses, looking down at the coffee table, all her files for the Foundation spread out and cluttered, budget lists, potential donors, the spreadsheet of possible host sites, partnering organizations, on and on and all around.

“You do tend to get over-eager with projects at the outset,” Kara says quietly, folding her arms over her belly.

“Have you ever known me not to follow-through? No matter how daunting the job,” Cat returns, knowing this will be difficult, hard, trying and challenging, knowing this is going to change the course of her life for the next two decades. Supergirl. Another baby.

_Kara_.

“I don’t know about moving in,” Kara says. “People will talk, and you can’t risk donors pulling out of the Foundation if I—if they think that you’re—”

“Sleeping with my former assistant?”

“There’s that, and then there’s the _child_ ,” Kara says, tearing up again.

“Kara, no,” Cat murmurs, reaching up to catch the tear before it can roll over her cheek.

“Whatever we do, we can’t be selfish,” Kara squeaks. It sounds like something she’s had to say to herself time and time again, a line rehearsed, something she’s practiced and prepared and tried and tried to convince herself of, even if she doesn’t necessarily believe it. “Cat…”,

Kara takes a long moment and stares at the coffee table, watching the condensation form and roll over the edge of Cat’s glass. Cat watches Kara in the meanwhile, waiting for some painfully selfless move that will only make her heart hurt all the harder.

“You can… you can give her things I can’t,” Kara murmurs, pupils flitting back and forth, as if watching a film play out before her eyes. “Maybe it would… it would be better… we could manufacture an adoption story, it would explain your leave of absence, the timeline fits—”

“What are you suggesting?”

“If you’re serious about this,” Kara says, clutching her stomach like it’s her greatest treasure, “You could… I could give you full custody. For her sake. For yours, so the Foundation won’t suffer. It’ll be best if I’m not affiliated with her, or you, I could sneak in to see her so people don’t talk, so you don’t have to… and then Supergirl… if anyone ever found out, Cat, I couldn’t live with myself putting either of you in danger! And Carter! What would we tell him, Cat, I—”

“Slow down,” Cat says, orders, demands, for she herself is at an utter loss, unsure, scared, yes, most definitely scared, but ready to dive, _dive Kara_ , dive _with_ Kara, into whatever this crazy mess of an adventure might mean for them.

“Part of me resents my mother for sending me away,” Kara confesses, apparently getting a handle on her spiraling thoughts. It’s the first time Cat’s heard anything of the mother on Krypton, the one who died _in a fire_. “But I understand now… you had to do it, too. Sometimes it’s for the best, giving up—giving up your _child_.”

“You do not have to do that if you don’t want to. You’re a part of this, Kara,” Cat says, reaching for Kara’s protective hands, shielding her stomach from a cruel, suspicious world that will hurl obscenities at the pair of them—and at their daughter.

“I could keep her at the apartment, but you never even go to that side of town. And if we keep her here, it’ll look—”

“Suspicious, yes,” Cat says, even though the thought of Kara’s usually calming, cheerful presence in her apartment is not distasteful in the slightest.

“We’re not even in a relationship, but that’s what people will think. Judgmental people. The Foundation—”

“Let me worry about the Foundation,” Cat snips, thinking about all of the pieces in play, the financial, the alien, political, geographical, familial. Oh, this is hard, might just be the hardest thing she’s done yet.

_Do you have any idea how exciting it is not to know what I’m going to do tomorrow?_

Exciting. Terrifying.

_I’m about to take a leap into the unknown, and honestly? I’m thrilled._

“Cat, I… I don’t know how to make this work.”

“The logistics are… problematic, yes,” Cat acknowledges, because a flat-out disagreement is not what Kara needs right now. And Cat, in her occasional wisdom, will continue to encourage Kara, out of habit, out of desire, for she has always believed in her. “But not insurmountable.”

“It was just the one time…” Kara’s voice breaks, and so does Cat’s heart.

“I wouldn’t change it,” Cat says quickly, because she wouldn’t, she’d never take back that night holding Kara close to her. “I would bear this for you if I could. And at my age, that’s saying something,” Cat tries to smile, to jostle her head a little and add some levity to a situation that is swallowing them whole. “But Kara, I… there are some decisions that yes, I regret, but I could never regret you. You are so strong and loving and brave. If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

“How?” Kara asks, turning on her side, casting sad, gorgeous blue eyes up to her like she holds all the answers. “Cat, tell me how and I’ll do it, but I’m just—I’m _lost_.”

“I don’t know how just yet,” Cat reassures her, unable to stomach the way Kara looks at her, like she’s the one who should be doing the saving. This is not Cat’s type of heroism. She can give truths, though, has always disseminated reassurances and stories and statements at the proper time. In the papers, on camera, Cat crafts maxims, _truths_ and sticks to them. So for the moment, that’s what she gives Kara: “I don’t know the answer to that yet Kara, but I promise you, we’ll figure it out.”

“We…”

“ _Our_ child,” Cat whispers, opening one of her arms and pulling Kara into her, a brief flash of that night, of this hug, warming her insides like a steamy hot toddy. “I will always be here to help.”

Kara clutches harder against Cat’s blouse. Nothing rips, no buttons go flying, but the depth of feeling behind her words is evident in Kara’s ragged inhale, in the way she turns into Cat’s neck.

“I’m so grateful it’s you,” Kara mumbles, the heat of her breath hitting the skin of Cat’s throat. “I don’t know if that’s okay to say. I care about you so much, and… and I know we don’t, we’re not—it’s not like we love each other, but—if it had to be anybody, I’m so thankful it’s you.”

Cat drops a kiss to the crown of Kara’s head and holds her, offers her the smallest of kindnesses because that is all Cat can give in this fragile moment. She thinks about her sons, her daughter, about Kara and how wrong she is to assume Cat might only care for her. Care for her, but not love her so ardently it could cause her own ruin.

“We’ll make it work,” Cat says again, though she has no idea how. “We will,” she repeats, and even if she is unsure, she cannot let herself sound that way to Kara.

Maybe the site for the Foundation is on the other side of the city, in Kara’s neighborhood. Maybe part of the Foundation is sponsoring a school, a daycare, _something_ , something she can cobble together soon enough so that Supergirl can get back to kicking alien ass in the streets and still return to pick her daughter up at 3:30 in the afternoon. Will she have powers? Will she be able to control them? Would it even be safe to allow her to go to a school with other children? Cat quashes the thought of sending her daughter to some lab Kara’s associated with, with sterile, clinical instruments Agent Scully might use to poke and prod.

That will never happen.

Cat presses another kiss to Kara’s head because maybe she needs that reassurance as well, even if she’ll never ask for it.

It will be hard, seeing Kara everyday without the barrier of professionalism to keep her in check. It will be so hard, raising what they _created_ , a little tottering blonde girl who hopefully gets Kara’s smile, a smile that disarms her in an instant. And it will be hard, raising this child, an older woman with a Foundation to create, an image to maintain, a corporation to run. It will be so hard to do it all with Kara at her side and not reveal how hopelessly in love she is with the girl.

Cat holds Kara and tells herself she didn’t fall, she _dove_ , and is now submerged in waters so deep she’ll never reach the surface.

Not without Kara to breathe life back into her.

 

* * *

 


End file.
